tax time

So tax time is looming again. Cut off dates for RRSPs etc coming up at month end, and time to start crossing my t's and dotting my i's, so to speak. In other words, time for my annual worry fest to begin. Does anyone else hate this time of year? I absolutely dread it. I don't know why, really. I keep track of all my paperwork as it comes in the mail. I have a few extra things I have to do as my husband does earn part of his income each year under his own business name, and so I have to keep track of that in addition to all the other bits and pieces that go with tax time - things you can write off, etc. I'm no accountant, so I try to keep it as simple as I can, but it can be a bit tricky, as I'm most of you out there can attest to. The thing is, I have this problem with honesty. As in I am super honest, to the point where I worry that even if I think I've done everything correctly that it will somehow turn out that I didn't and I will be in big trouble.  I am horribly paranoid that I will do something wrong, forget something or what have you, and then one day there will be this knock on the door and these guys who look something like the evil virus dudes from The Matrix will be standing on my front porch, waiting to take me away to whatever special hell is set aside for people who screw up on their income tax. And I'll be shrieking "but I didn't MEAN to, really! I swear I thought I had everything in that shoebox organized properly!!"as they drag me off, and no one will ever hear from me again....
So every year after tax time is done, I promise myself to be more organized, to get everything ready long before the cutoff day. That way I won't have anything to be worried about, I will know I've done everything right. But every year I seem to end up in low grade panic by the end of April. Okay, so the fact that I am already worrying about this and it's still February is a good thing I figure. I am hoping this means that I will be really motivated to get everything in order right away, and then this year I swear I swear I am going to get that filing system set up that I always say I'm going to do, and it will all be easy peasy this time next year.
Remind me to look back at this next year in April and see what I have to say then. Assuming that I haven't mysteriously vanished after posting this which somehow alerted those scary Matrix tax guys to my presence and they carted me off the moment after I filed my taxes, oh man...

tying the knot

This year two of my long time single friends are getting hitched. In fact, one did so just yesterday down in Mexico. The other is tying the knot in May. I have known both these ladies for many years, and I have to say it has been very fun to see how excited they both were when they got engaged. It has been a few years since I've had anyone close to me get married, and so I have gotten back into the wedding fever vicariously through them I guess. It's really quite fascinating to watch someone else go through the madness that is getting married. I forgot how consuming it is. Suddenly there is nothing more important than what dress you will wear for example - my one friend fell in love with a dress that she bought, sent us all tons of pics of her in it, and then when she picked it up eventually from the store and tried it on at home was horrified to find that she didn't think she liked it all any more. She shouted to her fiance (she was in her closet trying it on because she was so worried that he might try to peek at her!) whether he thought it might be alright if she bought another dress, and he bravely answered back that it would seriously affect their wedding budget if she did...Anyway, I guess she took it over to her sister's and tried it on in an actual room with her shoes etc and decided it was fine after all, phew. My other friend who got married over the weekend posted a comment in her Facebook status the day before the wedding that she was having some trouble composing her wedding vows. The day before!! Well, she was pretty infamous back in our university days for staying up all night before a final exam to study (I should know, I was often with her), so perhaps she still performs best under pressure.
It got me thinking, what were my vows? What exactly did my dress look like again? In my experience, most brides that I have known don't actually end up remembering all that much about their wedding, it's all such a blur. You worry for months about all the tiny details, hyperventilating over every facet of the big day - what your colours will be, who your guests should be, who will sit with who, what will be your song, what should your favors be, what kind of flowers should you have, oh my god, and then the day comes, and does any of it really matter in the end?
Well, I suppose it does. It IS your wedding day, after all. It SHOULD be special. Because no matter what changes, what happens down the road, whether you stay married happily forever after or not, in that moment, on that day, you are saying to the world that you are willing to give it a try. And that is all a wedding is really about, I think. Two people going out on a limb in front of people they care about, taking a great big leap of faith with each other. Sometimes they don't land well, and sometimes they fly. But you'll never know which it will be if you don't take that deep breath and say "I do."
Besides, who doesn't love a great wedding?? It's definitely not just the happy couple who don't always remember much the next day...!

Fab Four

Why oh why is everything in this world designed for a family of four??? Every dinner deal, every vacation trip deal, every nice looking car, everything. Of course I am complaining bitterly because I have a family of five. I just had to overachieve and squeeze two babies out of my second pregnancy, and so now we are one the cursed families that don't fit into anything good in this world. Arrrgggh. I don't know how many times I have wished that my twins were at least identical instead of fraternal - I have these plans where we would book a trip somewhere for four and get the special rate, and then we would dress the twins alike and just keep hiding one somewhere so we could pass for a family of four, like in the bathroom on the plane, or in the bathroom in the hotel lobby when checking in...except that of course my twin girls look nothing alike anymore, other than being about the same size. They won't even wear their hair the same length any more, damn them! So selfish. Ah well. So it occurs to me that for every family of five out there like mine, all pissed off to be missing out on the good deals, there must also be some families of three equally pissed that it costs them as much or more to eat out or travel as it would if they had an extra warm body attached to their family....hmmmm. I may have found a loop hole! I wonder if there is like a match making agency out there somewhere for odd numbered families like ours, some company that would match us up with a family three, so that all we would have to do would be to book our vacations together, for example.  Geez, if there isn't such a service available I should set it up! Hmmmm. Of course for safety's sake you'd have to have one of the adults in my family travel with the family of three, just in case they became a little too fond of one of my kids and didn't want to give her back, and then I suppose that I would be the one who would end up sitting with my three kids on the plane for example, while my husband would "take one for the family" and sit with the strangers, and probably just drink cocktails and sleep the whole time, while I dealt with spilled meals, bickering, and vomit bags...but think of the money we'd save, right, it's about the money.
Maybe I should just lobby for deals for families of five instead.

Trash or Treasure?

They say the eyes are the mirrors of the soul. Meaning I guess that by looking at someone's eyes you can tell what kind of person they truly are. I don't know if that's true, but I would like to apply the theory to something more everyday. I'll call it "the minivan is the mirror of my life". This I do know to be true. The condition of my minivan is generally a very accurate reflection of the my life, I have to say. Today I attempted to clean it out, and found all kinds of things, none of which belonged at any time to me. An empty coffee cup from McDonalds, another from Krispy Kreme, an empty cardboard hot dog container from 7 Eleven, along with several napkins from all three of the above mentioned establishments. Two broken umbrellas, two working umbrellas. A backpack containing my husbands curling shoes, and his curling broom. A Tinkerbell rainjacket. A double bedsheet, 2 towels, a frisbee and a sandbucket, complete with some rocks and sand. Several reusable grocery bags, and two plastic grocery bins. Two empty wine bottles and an old jacket of my husbands. Four empty plastic water bottles. Okay, you get the picture, the list continues but I won't bore you with the rest of it.  So I bagged everything up and either threw them out or deposited them in the laundry room. You could map out the story of my family's day to day existence by the things I find in that car. Now expand that theory to my house. I swear that every horizontal surface in my home is magnetic, because no matter how many times I clear them off, I turn around and they are covered in crap again. My children and husband seem drawn to them like zombies..."ooohh, empty counter, must empty everything out of my pockets on to it....ohhhh, empty dining room table, must cover it with toys and crayons and half empty glasses of water..."And I run around behind them all like a deranged escaped lunatic shrieking "whose cup is this?? why are there socks on the coffee table?? who put pinecones and rocks on the buffet????"
And then they all just look at me, totally puzzled, and I realize that it's all just completely lost on them. Where my eyes see garbage, their eyes see treasures. And I do not have a clue how to change that, or if I even should. So I sigh and end up telling them to just put their stuff away - if it's precious, then at least treat it like it's precious, as I am handicapped in that way and cannot tell the difference between their trash and their treasure.  Maybe one day something will end up being worth a bijillion dollars, and I can hire a maid.

Big Love

I'm not a huge TV watcher, at least I don't think I am. In part because who has time to watch TV? I don't, not until after homework is done, kids are in bed, lunches for the next day are made, etc etc. The other reason I don't think of myself as a big watcher of TV is the lack of anything worth my time to watch. Lisa's guide to choosing a show to watch - if it has a laugh track, forget about it. I know most of the shows that were popular when I was a kid all had laugh tracks - MASH, Happy Days, Threes Company - so maybe I just over did it, because now I can't stand the laugh track. So I gravitate towards watching the Food Network, because I love to eat, and almost anything on HBO. One of my favorite shows the past few years has been Big Love. That's the one about the polygamists in Utah. When I first started watching it I would tell people about it and they would be like, ewwwww, that sounds so WEIRD! Now of course it's all the rage. Everyone is talking about polygamy, it's in the news right here in British Columbia where we have our own controversial little polygamist community, and then there's a new reality show called Sister Wives, which I would swear was the basis for the fictional Big Love. Anyhoo, weird or not, I find the whole concept and hence the TV show quite fascinating, albeit in a kind of creepy morbid way, like when you drive by a car accident and you don't want to look but you just HAVE to look...
It's just not possible to watch the show without stirring up a discussion. Aside from all the religious hoopla about how God said that basically they'll go to hell if they don't engage in plural marriage (whew, the things men will say to get laid, I tell ya) what would it be like to actually have several wives if you were a man? Or share one man with a group of other wives? I have to say I like the concept of the built in daycare system - one wife goes to work, another stays home and takes care of all the kids - and I don't mind the idea of having my bedroom all to myself at least a couple nights a week. But come on. Ultimately it's just begging for trouble. I bet they have some amazing knock down drag 'em out fights, some serious hair pulling if you know what I mean. Eventually someone would have to rebel.
And really, why the hell would you want to share your husband? If you're going to go to the bother of being married, at least be married to someone who can practice enough self control to just be with you. Isn't that the point? Otherwise you might as well stay single. Aside from the daycare set up, I really can't see the difference. It seems to me it's just the man's way of saying okay, now you're mine, you can't see anyone else. If you were single, you would be free to date other people if you wanted to. Just like he is, as long as he's "married" to them, that is. It's a win win sweet set up for the men in that society.
I think the name of the show should be changed from Big Love to Big Ego. Because that's what those men have, egos the size of a small planet, in order for them to set themselves up with multiple wives and multiple children in their own little kingdom.
Whew. It's too early for this much drama. I think I need to go watch something on the Food Network now...

Valentines Day

What is the deal with Valentines Day? I mean, really. We hate it when we're single, and we almost hate it more when we're attached. There's just so much pressure to perform. Okay okay, I wasn't exactly thinking of sex, although I guess there's that too! More specifically, the pressure to come up with the perfect gift, the most romantic moment, the gushiest card, you get the picture. I tend to be more of a practical person than a romantic, and so how can I complain when my husband knows me well enough to make sure my gifts reflect that sometimes? Case in point. My thoughtful husband presented me with a lovely gift yesterday, a snazzy little make up bag that was full of expensive hair care products. I thought it was really nice, especially since I do struggle with my hair, and was impressed that he had thought of such a gift that was all about pampering myself. I was looking forward to trying out my new shampoos etc today, and once the kids were all at school and I had some just for me shower time set aside, I opened the cute little bag and started to examine the hair products. Hmmmm. Yes, they were expensive, and yes, they were a designer brand, but it also turns out they are designed specifically for aging, dull, lifeless hair. I might have been offended except that I realized I couldn't make out what the labels said without putting on my reading glasses....
So in the end, as I sit here with glowing bouncy hair I have to admit his gift was a winner, and remember that a ton of single women out there would give their left boob for such attention. As for me, I  presented him with a sushi cook book and a request for dinner, thus transforming my gift to him into a gift for myself.Actually now that I think about it, I suppose my little shampoo kit was kind of the same thing for him too....

the shoe fairy

Sometimes I really do think I am on the verge of completely losing my mind. Perhaps it's just sleep deprivation. Last night I was woken first by my daughter Emily standing over me exclaiming "MOM!" and  I struggled up from sleep saying "WHAT?" and Em said "I LOST MY TOOTH!"  At moments like this it is critical to somehow find a way to stay rational, or become rational when you are still more than half asleep and your heart is pounding, so that you respond in an appropriate mommy-ish manner. So instead of batting her away and mumbling something like oh my god, you almost gave me a heart attack, please go back to bed and leave me alone, I managed to sit up, take some deep breaths and say oh honey, that's great, where IS your tooth? and stumble off into the darkness with her to stow said tooth away safely for the tooth fairy, and dab up the blood that is still oozing from her little mouth, and stagger back to bed again. I even managed to think clearly enough to convince her to wrap up the tooth and leave it upstairs with me, rather than let her take it back down to stuff into her tooth pillow that she keeps for these occasions. I eventually coaxed myself back to sleep, only to be woken by the telephone ringing around 4am, oh dear god, you know that's not a good thing. As I leap up and stumble off through the dark house in search of a phone, in the midst of my second heart attack of the night, my only conscious thought is oh my god, either someone just died or it's one of those dreadful wrong number long distance phone calls from India that we get periodically and I am going to have to spend 20 minutes trying to explain to someone that the person they are looking for really doesn't live in my house, so they don't call back again the next night. Anyway, I find a phone, say "HELLO???" and hold my breath. It's my father in law OH SHIT, who's dead, who is it??? and after he asks to speak to Mike I ask WHAT'S UP as casually as I can and he replies that they have a work emergency at a building he needs to ask about, and I am already starting to shut down again as I hand the phone over.
Anyway. Somehow I manage to get some more sleep, and wake up in time to realize that my husband is already up and gone, it's time to get the kids moving, it's Valentine's Day, AND I still have to remember a certain tooth fairy task. I head downstairs and remember, oh my god, did I put a Valentine in each of the kid's Valentine bags that my daughter Kate had cleverly thought to make, hoping to ensure some kind of loot for them on Valentine's morning?? My god, I did. I had gone to bed and then suddenly recalled those bags sitting by the fireplace (I guess we hang Xmas stockings by the fireplace, so Kate must have figured it was a safe bet to put her V Day bags near it too) and I had gone downstairs in the dark and cut out 3 pink hearts and written them each a message and stuffed it in their bags with...what? "Wagonwheels??" "We got Wagonwheels for Valentine's Day??" came the puzzled comments from the living room. Okay, give me a break, it was late, I was tired, and it was the only form of chocolate I could find at that hour.
So the girls mentioned that Em had lost her tooth, and I said, oh yeah, I completely forgot, why don't you run upstairs and get it from my room and put it away safe for the tooth fairy to find tonight? And off she went, and moments later she returned shrieking that her tooth was already gone and there was money in the little wad of toilet paper instead. She didn't even seem to notice that the tooth fairy had left an odd assortment of spare change rather than the usual tidy one dollar coin. :)
Feeling pretty with it we got through the rest of the morning routine fairly unscathed, and then it all fell apart. Em couldn't find one of her shoes. This is a many times a day event in our house - nobody but me ever puts their shoes away when they take them off, which would just be messy except that every time someone comes into the house our dog gets all excited and grabs the nearest shoe and runs off with it...So I lost my temper, yelled at the dog who of course had no idea what he'd done, yelled at my messy house, yelled at the girls to just get in the car, yelled at my husband for not putting the car seats back properly yesterday after he hauled a bunch of empties to the bottle depot, yelled at the god damn shoe fairy for taking a shoe as well as a tooth and sent Em off to school in her rain boots. At least they matched.
On a side note, after I got home, took some more deep breaths, had some coffee, I discovered the missing shoe stuffed half under the corner of the fridge, and in an attempt to redeem myself as a good mother I drove the pair of shoes to the school and deposited them in Emily's cubby outside her classroom. And people wonder what I do with my time....